One way to test these concepts is to consider how they interact with real questions people have in the world. We’ll look quickly at two— not necessarily to answer them definitively but to uncover, in a real-world context, the complexities encountered when asking such seemingly simple and obvious questions.
Quick, which bag is better for the environment, paper or plastic (see Figure 2.2)? Are you sure?
LEFT IMAGE:
/W http://www. flickr. com/photos/ rosenfeldmedia/3258986460
right image:
/W http://www. flickr. com/photos/ rosenfeldmedia/3258159681
Because even the experts can’t agree. The ubiquitous question asked of shoppers by grocery baggers has been turned around in the past few years as it pertains to environmental choices. These are exceedingly simple options, most often comprising one part and fairly simple manufacturing processes. Their function, too, is incredibly simple and obvious in almost all cases. This makes it an easy question to start with. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.
|
Paper |
Plastic |
|
|
Pros |
Made from a renew- |
Much lighter than |
|
able resource (trees) |
paper bag |
|
|
Biodegradable |
Despite being made from fossil fuels, uses considerably less material and releases significantly less greenhouse gas in the manufacturing and transportation |
|
|
Cons |
Trees are renewable |
Made from fossil |
|
only if replanted and carefully managed Biodegradable only if not put in a landfill (basically, nothing in a land fill ever degrades) |
fuels |
One camp contends that paper bags are better because they’re biodegradable and don’t rely solely on petroleum products for their manufacture. They also claim that paper bags don’t pose as much of a danger to wildfire (which turns out not to be much of a
problem, in actuality[3]). So paper bags must be better.
